Perfect Offer
by LaedieDuske
Summary: Prompt Fic - Dean is hurt bad and in a dire situation.  Is someone looking for him? - Edited: ff.n had eaten my formatting. Sorry!


Title: Perfect Offer

Author: LaedieDuske

Characters: Dean, OMCs

Genre/pairing:Gen

Rating: I would have to say PG-13

Word-count: 1653

Spoilers: None

Warnings: I've been in sort of a dark place in my head lately. Unfortunately for Dean, I have dragged him there with me. I've never really been much for fluffy happy fics anyway, I don't seem to be able to pull them off, but this is dark even for me. Torture, abuse, blood, drugs, a couple of swear words. I think that's it. I think that's enough.

Summary: Dean is hurt bad and in a dire situation. Is someone looking for him?

Notes: Written for **hoodie_time**'s Writing Between the Lines challenge, for the prompt: "Hitting the last nail into the wood he ignored the blood that sprayed his face. He watched in saticfaction as glassy green eyes rolled back in their sockets.

The beat of the drums mingled with loud cheers. The ceremony had begun..."

Disclaimer: Not mine, don't own, would take better care of them if I did, I promise.

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In fleeting moments of semi-lucidity he sometimes wonders how long he has been there.

In a couple instances of agonized desperation he had wondered whether he had been missing long enough for Sam to have given up looking for him. Maybe Sam had gone back to school, found his normal life.

When the fever overtook him he wondered if he had really gone to Stanford to ask Sam for help in the first place. Maybe it had all been a vivid fever-dream.

He realizes once or twice that there is something important he should remember about his father, but his fractured mind cannot reassemble the flittering shards of memory. It frustrates him nearly to tears before he blacks out again.

If he had been anywhere near aware the one time he was actually able to lay on his back he might have noticed how his normally flat, toned stomach now sunk well below the jut of his prominent hip bones, leaving his rib cage disturbingly pronounced.

His stomach and chest are covered in bruises from fists and feet. His arms and legs littered with welts and blood where repeated canings have split his skin as his body lost its protective layer of muscle. His back is crisscrossed with bloody wounds from alternate whippings and floggings.

Exhaustion, pain, starvation, blood-loss, fever and repeated drugging keep him weakened and pale. Each time he wakes, trembling and naked in a dank root cellar lit only by what manages to eke in through the narrow crack at the bottom of the door, he struggles to find some spark of hope he will make it out alive somehow.

As the beatings get worse, they stop drugging him altogether, thinking him too far gone to struggle anymore. That also meant the semi-regular feedings of cold, slimy gruel were no more, either.

His mind began to clear somewhat, enough to consider what that new development might mean. Dean had no desire to be killed by the very people he and Sam had come to try to save. He was not quite sure how he could manage to escape when he could not even stand on his own, though.

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In the fifty-odd years Brother Joseph had been participating in the Glesenda'an ritual to ensure the peace and prosperity of his small town, he had never seen such a perfect offering for their guardian deity, Rolmke.

His mind drifted back to the night they managed to grab their offering. He smiled maliciously as he once again entertained the thought that they never would have managed to subdue him if he had not already been injured.

Watching him move through town with the ease of someone who had been born there, it was impossible to miss the grace and power in his bearing. His strength of will shone through in all of his interactions with the townspeople, as well as his natural charisma.

What really told the tale of his character, though, was his interaction with his companion. The mutual love and protectiveness there nearly made Brother Joseph despair of ever getting them separated long and far enough to capture his prey.

Instead, Brother Joseph prayed hard and made offerings of blood and pain to gain his god's favour. He trusted in Rolmke to show him the way, trust he had borne his entire life. Three nights of offerings and Rolmke had shown his approval.

The two men rolled back into town from who-knew-where sometime in the early hours of the morning. Both were battered and bruised, but somehow the larger one seemed to come through whatever they had endured much less injured than the smaller of the two.

Brother Joseph snorted at the thought. The "smaller" one cleared 6 feet and was in superb shape when he was taken, aside from his injuries. Small is definitely a relative term here, he reminded himself.

They stopped at the only 24-hour store in a five city radius and, after casting a worried look at the form slumped in the passenger seat, the larger one had practically launched himself out from behind the wheel and hurried into the store. Brother Joseph and his three assistants had not wasted any time.

They barely registered the loud groan of the hinges when the passenger door was flung open, their focus concentrated on the large man bleeding in the passenger seat. He was semi-conscious at best and Brother Joseph's skin prickled with his pride that his offering to his god had been exceptional enough to warrant such an easy capture.

Again, a relative term: easy.

Though he was weakened by his wounds, their offering still did his best to struggle. Brother Joseph's smile grew a bit more feral has he replayed the memory of the man's fight for freedom doing little more than causing him to bleed out faster. He knew from years of inflicting pain and injury that it was a close call. By the time their captive finally succumbed to exhaustion and blood-loss, it was very nearly too late to save him for the ritual.

It had shown them clearer than anything else could have that their "guest" had deep reserves of strength and determination. In light of that it was decided their interests would be best served by keeping him weakened and confused. At least until just before the ceremony. There was nothing in the ritual that said the offering had to be conscious and coherent, but Brother Joseph much preferred the experience if they were. What Brother Joseph wanted, Brother Joseph got.

He hoped this year, with this perfect offering, Rolmke would not just bless the coming year but maybe even finally _show_ himself to his devoted followers. There were accounts in the old histories of villages occasionally being graced with his battle-scarred presence, but there were no accounts in anything resembling "recent history".

Brother Joseph's lips curled, baring his teeth as he rubbed his calloused hands together in anticipation.

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When they came to get Dean, he did his best to struggle. By the time they had bodily dragged him halfway up the stairs, he had blacked out from the effort.

He came to as they were binding him to an intricate wooden structure perched on an ancient, carved dais. Realization dawned on him that he was the intended centrepiece in a ritual of some sort. His captors were spread apart, each tying a limb, and Dean mustered his strength to try to wrench an arm free. He grimaced and cried out weakly as the man securing that arm slammed his knuckles back against the unforgiving wood.

What looked like strips of rawhide were cinched tightly around his wrists and ankles, loops at either end of each strip accommodating nails that were driven through from the back to hold the bindings in place more secure than any knot could have.

He was so screwed.

The large man who had thwarted his escape attempt hammered his nail into place as the two men at Dean's ankles finished theirs. He stepped back into Dean's line of sight with a sneer when he was finished and, fast as a rattlesnake strike, cocked his fist back and slammed it into Dean's nose.

Brother Joseph was just finishing up securing Dean's final appendage. Hitting the last nail into the wood he ignored the blood that sprayed his face. He watched in satisfaction as glassy green eyes rolled back in their sockets.

The beat of the drums mingled with loud cheers. The ceremony had begun.

The entire town had turned out in their finest to celebrate their god and to witness the sacrifice in his honour. Brother Joseph began the incantations and rituals, secure in the knowledge that their offering would somehow claw his way back to consciousness before he was needed for the ceremony.

He had Dean pegged pretty well.

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At first, Dean thought what he was hearing was ringing in his ears. He could feel the blood still running down his face and he could not quite find the strength to open his eyes at first. So he hung there, his entire body throbbing as he tried to reconnect his brain to his other senses. The pain was overwhelming, he was exhausted and the thought of just throwing in the towel and allowing his suffering to end was overwhelming.

It was Winchester blood running thick down his face, though, and it burned in his veins. Dean was not quite sure how to go about giving up.

He sluggishly blinked his eyes open and somehow managed to lift his head.

The clearing was in total chaos.

People were screaming and running and his fuzzy brain thought for just a moment that maybe they had succeeded in summoning whatever it was they were trying for. He could feel the wood beneath his bare feet vibrating and the air around him felt too thick to breathe.

When the field was mostly clear, he caught a blur of movement in his peripheral vision but he could not seem to track what it was. A tingle of fear crawled out from his belly, the fact that he was naked and securely tied in place became the entire focus of his tangled thoughts.

He lost time, was not sure if he blacked out or if his overloaded senses simply shorted out for a minute. When his vision cleared again, he was pretty sure he had died or was imagining things.

Sam was there, huge hands cradling Dean's bruised and bloody face. "Jesus, Dean, what the hell? What did they do to you? Shit, nevermind, I'm getting you out of here, just hang on okay? Just...stay with me man!"

"Sammy?" It was barely more than a whisper. He did not care if it were real or hallucination in that moment. Sammy was with him and he could let go. He took comfort in his brother's presence as his world went dark again.

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A/N: Please see _Perfect Rescue_ for the sequel. Thanks for reading!


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